2014 Resident Volunteer Award: Joseph V. Sakran

Joseph V. Sakran, MD, MPH, a general surgeon from Fairfax Station, VA, received the 2014 Surgical Resident Volunteerism Award for developing long-term interventions aimed at reducing the global burden of surgical disease, participating in numerous international disaster relief efforts, and compiling an abundance of medical supplies for communities of low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). He has been interested in global health issues since he started his medical training. He treated suicide bomb victims in Jerusalem during the second Intifada of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, provided medical care to the Bedouin population in Israel’s Negev Desert, and treated the black Hebrews in Dimona. In response to the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004, he helped to organize a group of clinicians to provide care to patients in the damaged city of Pondicherry, India. Dr. Sakran also played a vital role in setting up a clinic after the 2010 Haiti earthquake outside Port-au-Prince. As a resident, he cofounded a not-for-profit organization called Surgeons for Global Health (SGH) to address the surgical burden of disease in low- and middle-income countries.